An entirely new type of fuel saw the light of the day 10 years ago, when the production of renewable diesel began at the Neste Porvoo refinery in Finland. In just ten years, the innovation has made Neste the world's leading circular economy company in biofuels and reduced GHG emissions from traffic by more than 33 million tons. The figure is almost equal to the total annual GHG emissions from road transport in Finland and Sweden.

Neste MY Renewable Diesel™ created by Neste's own research and development, has been changing the world at an extraordinary pace. It has helped to reduce emissions in a number of applications ranging from private cars to heavy transport and from entire cities to sports and entertainment events. The total volume of GHG emissions reduced during the past 10 years amounts to more than 33 million tons.

"Our Neste MY Renewable Diesel has provided our customers with a quick and easy way to significantly reduce their carbon footprint. Thanks to the product's high quality, it can be used in existing engines to achieve up to 90% smaller GHG emissions compared to fossil diesel. I am extremely happy to see that an increasing number of drivers, businesses, cities and event organizers want to choose this low-emission renewable fuel," says Kaisa Hietala, Executive Vice President, Renewable Products at Neste.

Neste has become the world's largest producer of renewable diesel from waste and residues. The production capacity has increased from 0.2 to 2.6 million tons in ten years. In addition to Porvoo, there are now also refineries in Rotterdam and Singapore, and the company is aiming to reach the 3-million-ton milestone by 2020.

R&D concentrates on finding and researching new raw materials

During the past ten years, a series of R&D breakthroughs have helped Neste to retain its lead over its competitors.

"While we were making the first investment decisions on the production of renewable diesel here in Porvoo, we started to review how the range of raw materials could be expanded. Regarding waste and residues, we mainly used animal waste fat and vegetable oil at first, but at that time already we commenced research on the use of used cooking oil, algae oil and microbes," summarizes Lars Peter Lindfors, Senior Vice President, Technology at Neste.

"What someone calls waste is a valuable raw material for us. We are producing Neste MY Renewable Diesel from various types of industrial waste and residues, such as waste fat from the meat processing industry and used cooking oil. We are also constantly studying other, increasingly lower-quality raw materials that have no other significant uses and that could otherwise be burned as energy," Lindfors continues.

Environmental targets increase demand

International regulations ensuing from environmental targets, particularly in Europe and the USA, have been one of the cornerstones of the demand for renewable diesel.

Particularly during the last few years, it has become apparent that national regulation is being complemented by the wishes of cities, businesses and consumers to make environmentally friendly choices. Super Bowl City, Google, UPS, cities like San Francisco and Oakland, and many others have reduced their carbon footprint with renewable diesel as well as pioneer companies such as Lassila & Tikanoja and Schenker and cities such as Porvoo in Finland. Neste MY Renewable Diesel refined exclusively from waste and residues, is also available for private motorists at selected Neste stations since the beginning of 2017.

The next new fields for renewable business will be renewable jet fuel (biojet), as well as bioplastics and solvents, which are expected to increase their share to 20% of the sales of all renewable products by 2020.

Neste (NESTE, Nasdaq Helsinki) builds sustainable solutions for the needs of transport, businesses and consumers. Our global range of products and services allows customers to reduce their carbon footprint by combining high-quality and low-emission renewable products and oil products to tailor-made service solutions. We are the world's largest producer of renewable diesel refined from waste and residues, and we are also bringing renewable solutions to the aviation and plastics industries. We want to be a reliable partner whose expertise, research and sustainable practices are appreciated worldwide. In 2016, Neste's net sales stood at EUR 11.7 billion, and we were on the Global 100 list of the most sustainable companies in the world. Read more: neste.com

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